Black Hills Gold jewelry is believed to have first been made more than 100 years ago when prospectors came to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The jewelry was and is comprised of a base of gold which is connected to leaves and grapes made from an alloy of gold. The alloying of these ornamental pieces causes them to be pink, yellow and green in color.
To create the ornamental leaves and grapes, twenty-four karat gold is used and combined with a special formulation of other metals to create alloys having distinctive colors. The alloy is flattened into a sheet and the sheets stamped out into leaves, grape clusters, and ring shanks. Some of the designs require the use of a process known as "lost wax" casting. For each piece of jewelry to be cast, a model is made to exact specifications. A rubber mold is then created from the model and hot wax is injected into the mold. The wax patterns are mounted on a rubber base and surrounded by a stainless steel cylinder. A plaster-like material then called an "investment" is poured around the wax patterns. The cylinder is next placed into an oven and baked long enough to melt the wax and create a cavity that is the exact duplicate of the original pattern. The cavity is then injected with molten gold.
When all the parts for a piece of jewelry are ready, a trained craftsperson solders them together with a gold solder. The solder must be carefully placed to secure the parts together without detracting from the design of the jewelry.
After soldering, the piece of jewelry is electroplated and the alloyed gold, which is generally pink, or green is textured to give it a frosty appearance. The texturing step removes the twenty-four karat yellow gold plating from the pink and green leaves allowing the true colors to come through.
Finally, a skilled engraver details the leaves and grapes with hand engraving tools. The result is a beautiful piece of jewelry that has taken a great deal of time to produce and which as a result, is relatively expensive to purchase. The present invention discloses a method of producing a piece of jewelry that is as attractive as that described above, but which omits the necessity of employing a skilled craftsperson to attach the ornaments to the jewelry. It also discloses a process by which the jewelry base and leaves are formed of brass. The base is plated with yellow gold, the ornamental leaves are etched and plated in green or rose alloy. Then the ornaments are attached to the jewelry base. This process is less time consuming and less costly resulting in a less expensive product. The present invention yields a piece of jewelry that is the costume jewelry equivalent of the "Black Hill's Gold Creations". (Black Hills Gold Creations is a registered trademark.)
It is notable that ornaments have been attached to jewelry by means of threaded studs or swedging. While these techniques also eliminate the need of a skilled craftsperson for the soldering of the ornaments to the jewelry base, they result in a poor, nondurable means of attachment. The threaded studs, through time, turn their way free of the jewelry base as the jewelry is exposed to natural jarring and mishandling during wear or storage. The swedged attachment similarly fails, as the widened stud wears free due again to frictional movement of the ornaments with respect to the jewelry base. These failings are not evident in the attachment means disclosed herein.